Ireland's rivers have gone, in little more than a generation, from being almost pristine pure and clear to overblown imitations of open sewers and chemical drains. Eutrophication, largely resulting from an excess of phosphates in the water, has led to a widespread overgrowth of algae and other life forms while pollutants from many quarters have led to a dearth of fish and some sickeningly spectacular fish kills. In too many places, clear water has been replaced by murky muck and in urban areas it can be hard to see the water (however murky) through the debris of prams, supermarket trolleys, rusting refrigerators and bicycles.
Whatever has been done to tackle this ecological mess has tended to be on an ad-hoc and local basis, dealing usually with only one problem at a time instead of in the overall context of water quality on a national basis. Small wonder, then, that lakes and rivers continue to decline in quality, that fish stocks continue to fall in different areas, that the purity of local drinking water supplies has been impaired in many places and that the quality of life is still being impaired in terms of the safety, the beauty and the usefulness of water in this country. This is bad for communities that are closely dependent on the quality of water flowing through their local catchment areas. It is bad for the growing tourist numbers who are attracted by the tranquillity of the inland waterways, whether for cruising or fishing. It is bad for those using local water supplies for drinking and washing. It is good for nobody.
There may, therefore, be some hope for us all in the work being undertaken by the Three Rivers Project, a Government initiative, sponsored by the Department of the Environment and the local authorities responsible for various activities in the catchment areas of the Liffey, the Suir and the Boyne. These three catchment areas cover about 10 per cent of the land-mass of the Republic and the Project has set up a number of pilot studies at various points in the three catchment areas to try to gain a better idea of where pollutants come from and how to achieve cross-sectoral and cross-community co-operation in order to deal with them. For the first time, there seems to be some coherent effort to tackle the growing problem of water pollution at its sources and to develop effective strategies that will restore surface water to its pristine condition.
Everyone must be involved in the process: State bodies, local industries, farmers, householders, individual citizens, the owners of water treatment plants of all sizes, members and staff of local authorities, the Government and all legislators. At present, the Three Rivers Project is undertaking evaluation of what the problem is in many different aspects. It will come as no surprise to most interested observers to learn that most water treatment plants are inadequate in removing the excess of phosphates that can cause eutrophication. But how many householders are aware of how their household detergents add dangerously to those phosphate levels in the first place? How many are aware of the risks of water pollution from badly placed and badly designed septic tanks? How aware are many industrial manufacturers of the effects which their factories have on surface water in the catchment areas where they are situated? How many local authorities meet their responsibilities in terms of protecting the lakes and rivers in their areas?
The questions are endless. The Three Rivers Project could answer many of them and could go further to provide the information needed by the legislators to draft a coherent national strategy to save the rivers of the land. Then, of course, someone would have to act on that. Wouldn't they?